In today’s article, we are going to be focussing on the Passive House Standard by answering the following questions: **what is a passive house?** **What is the Passive House concept?** and **What are the Passive House principles?** Keep reading and find out how Passive House can help you to **#ONEUPYOURBUSINESS**!

## WHAT IS A PASSIVE HOUSE?

A Passive House is a building concept that offers energy savings and improved comfort and health for occupants. Passive House buildings use low amounts of energy for cooling and heating and are built according to principles developed by the Passive House Institute in Germany.

Compared to standard practise for the UK new build, Passive House buildings achieve a 75% reduction in space heating requirements. This can help the industry to reduce carbon emissions by 80% and contribute to the [UK government’s](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-becomes-first-major-economy-to-pass-net-zero-emissions-law "UK government's") mission of a greener future by helping to meet target of reducing the UK’s greenhouses gasses by 100% by 2050.

The focus of Passive House is to reduce energy use and carbon emissions from buildings in a cost-effective way by reducing the requirement for space heating and cooling, whilst providing indoor comfort levels.

## WHAT IS THE PASSIVE HOUSE CONCEPT? 

The term 'Passive House' was already being used in Architecture and Design to designate the houses that were created to collect and distribute solar energy as heat in the winter and reject the solar heat in summer. Passive Solar House was a common concept in the ancient civilisations of Greece, China, and Rome, although it was mostly abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire and it was not until 1930s that George F. Keck modernised and brought a new lease of life the concept, designing houses like the House of Tomorrow in Indiana, USA. 

Nowadays, Passive House is a low energy design concept that can be adopted by **anyone** without the need to pay any fees for a specific certification by any company that tries to capitalise from it. This more modern concept expands on the ideas of the Passive Solar Houses, adding new elements to it, like active heat recovery ventilation and other sources of heat besides solar.

Although the Passive House concept is more frequently applied to new buildings, it can also be successfully retrofitted to older constructions, and there are several tens of thousands of buildings worldwide designed and tested to the standard.

## WHAT ARE THE PASSIVE HOUSE PRINCIPLES?

Passive House buildings achieve saving energy and reducing greenhouse gases by using energy efficient building components and a quality ventilation system. The Passive House principles include: 

- High levels of continuous insulation
- Thermal fabric for UK climate
- Minimal thermal bridging
- Airtightness
- Ventilation
- Controlled ventilation and heat recovery during the heating season with Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)
- Use of solar and internal heat gains

With this new article defines what a passive house is, describes the most important elements of the Passive House concept, and its benefits.

Passive House Concept Explained

We have already looked at the [Passive House concept](/blog/passive-house-explained/ "Passive House concept"). In this new blog post we are going to be talking about Passive House and Technology by answering the following question: **what are the advantages of Passive House and Technology?** Keep reading and find out how Passive House and Technology can help you to **#ONEUPYOURBUSINESS**!

## WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF PASSIVE HOUSE AND TECHNOLOGY?

As we have explained in other blog articles, the Passive House is a building concept that offers ultra-low energy consumption and improved comfort and health for occupants. Passive House buildings follow principles of low-volume heat recovery ventilation systems and tightly controlled rates of air infiltration, which allow the buildings to reduce carbon footprint. Adopting the Passive House concept makes for a greener future as it is committed to improved energy efficiency and below, we discuss the advantages of Passive House and Technology:
 
- **BIM provides Construction and Quality assurance**: the Passive House concept promotes designers to consider all aspects of the design in the early design stage. BIM (Building Information Modeling) helps with accurate visual representation of the buildings to provide different types of precise calculations such as areas, volume and distances. These can guide designers to make their design decisions with confidence and meet the Passive House concept requirements
- **IoT supports occupant wellbeing**: Passive House buildings can have high quality ventilation technology with a heat recovery system, offering natural ventilation during summer and great indoor air quality. The air is continuously being removed from the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and other rooms with high pollution and humidity whilst fresh and unused air is supplied to the living room bedrooms and functional rooms, helping to supply fresh air without consuming high amounts of electricity and without much noise. Therefore, ventilation systems are key technology to provide fresh indoor air and Internet of Things (IoT) enabled sensors can support occupant health by gathering real-time environmental data on the ventilation, air quality, and temperature levels and allowing them to monitor the air quality and make any necessary adjustments to provide a healthier environment
- **IoT ensures high level of quality and comfort**: with airtight construction and high-quality ventilation technology providing air quality control measures and eliminating cold corners and heat losses, Passive House buildings can ensure there are high levels of quality and comfort and better the health of occupants as the principles help to prevent damages that happen due to moisture build up. IoT sensors and smart buildings such as [Atamate](https://www.atamate.com/ "Atamate") and [Wondrwall](https://wondrwall.co.uk/ "Wondrwall") provides the occupants with real-time data enabling them to monitor and control their own environments suited to their needs. Implementing IoT-enabled sensors and monitoring helps to create smarter, more energy-efficient environments, and enhanced building performance because it is convenient, time saving, and energy saving
- **Renewable energy systems improve the retaining of heat**: Passive House windows including the frames can use triple-pane insulated glazing which are sealed with argon or filled with krypton gas. They have low-emissivity coatings, solar heat-gain coefficient, 'warm edge' insulating glass spacers, and thermal break window frames helping to retain heat. New technologies are being developed to help decarbonisation by creating carbon-neutral energy systems that can convert leftover energy from renewables and store them for an extended period for example heat batteries and home heating and off-grid cooking. Heat batteries can help to store heat for longer as they store and release thermal energy, taking up less room than a hot water tank. The company, [Pumped Heat](http://www.pumpedheat.co.uk/ "Pumped Heat"), is developing a heat storage unit by using renewable electrical energy. The generating of heat from electricity enables home heating and off-grid solar cooking helping to reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero 
- **Thermal Imagery guarantees maximum efficiency of solar thermal technology**: solar thermal technology can generate energy for heating and cooling to provide Passive House buildings with hot water and heat. The heat can only be used in the building where it is installed. This helps to reduce the use of primary energy as less fuel is then needed for water heating. Thermal imaging can assess a buildings energy efficiency by reporting on things such as heat loss, the flow of heat, moisture, and help with keeping solar panels in good condition to ensure maximum efficiency. Thermal Imaging provides informative documentation and allows for energy efficiency improvements
- **New heating technology reduces greenhouse gasses**: The [National Housing Federation](https://www.housing.org.uk/our-work/climate-and-sustainability/ "National Housing Federation") claims that decarbonising homes is “an essential part of tackling climate change”. The Passive House concept is important in terms of building for a greener future as it aims to reduce greenhouse gasses. With burning natural gas in our homes contributing to a third of UK carbon emissions, new central heating technology can help to reduce the emissions by switching from natural gas to hydrogen or implementing renewable heating systems such as solar thermal, biomass boilers, air source heat pumps, and ground source heat pumps.

This article discusses the advantages of Passive House and Technology and the solutions we can offer to enable you to build greener, smarter, and faster.

Passive House And Technology

Following on from previous articles where we explained the [Passive House concept](/blog/passive-house-explained/ "Passive House concept") and [Passive House and Technology](/blog/passive-house-and-technology/ "Passive House and Technology"). In this blog post we are going to be focussing on Passive House and BIM by answering the following question: **what are the advantages of Passive House and BIM?** Keep reading and find out how Passive House and BIM can help you to **#ONEUPYOURBUSINESS**!

## WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF PASSIVE HOUSE AND BIM? 

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a process that begins with the creation of 3D models and is useful in providing document management, coordination, and simulation during each stage of the project. It is gradually replacing traditional design methods and the [Passive House Institute](https://passivehouse.com/01_passivehouseinstitute/01_passivehouseinstitute.htm "Passive House Institute") has developed a BIM tool called bim2PH, which allows data to be integrated in 3D BIM software helping energy and design calculations in the [Passive House Planning Package](https://passivehouse.com/04_phpp/04_phpp.htm "Passive House Planning Package") (PHPP). Below we focus on the advantages of Passive House and BIM:
 
- **Ensures Passive House design concept**: with the designPH plugin you can add building geometry to create a 3D model interface and the advantage of this is it can provide feedback on the performance of the design allowing you to make improvements and promotes architects, designers, and all the relevant people to consider all aspects of the design in the early design stage
- **Improves energy efficiency**: BIM can help in assessing energy-saving potentials, combining the designPH plugin can assist in understanding energy balances from buildings, street lighting, solar thermal energy, wind turbines, and much more. This can help with choosing energy supply options, the design of retrofit subsidies, and how energy can be saved allowing the improvement of energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- **Provides accurate calculations**: BIM provides accurate visual representations of buildings to provide different types of precise calculations such as areas, volume, and distances. This can guide designers to make their design decisions with confidence and meet the Passive House concept requirements and can use a IFC format to store geometry data and object properties from different domains also helping to improve workflow 
- **Improves collaboration and workflow**: due to all the documentation for the project being in a centralised location this improves collaboration as it helps everyone involved access information with ease and it enhances workflow by allowing the data to be captured efficiently during the process. This helps everyone involved to make any quick modifications, iterate between designs, plan and adapt quicker, and so on
- **Reduces material waste**: as BIM can provide accurate calculations and measurements to provide precise measurements this help the design meet Passive House principles and accurately determine how much material is needed helping to the reduce extra materials ending up in landfills
- **Improves cost-effectiveness**: since BIM can identify specific materials and components that you are using for your project, it can also help to estimate costs with more accuracy  helping you to stay within budget and control your cost

We focus on Passive House and BIM, discussing the advantages and solutions we can offer to make your projects and business more efficient, safer, and productive.

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